The Atlanta Koi Club is showcasing 10 koi ponds and water gardens around east metro Atlanta June 22 from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

The tour’s theme is Living Art in Motion and it highlights the colors and swimming patterns of koi and garden wildlife.

The tour includes a lunch and one Atlanta Koi Club membership through December 2013. It is $30 per car, with a maximum of four adults. Pictures, descriptions, locations and directions to all of the ponds included in the tour are available through a booklet on the club’s website, www.atlantakoiclub.org. There are also sponsor discounts and door prizes at sponsors’ locations in the booklet.

The booklet will serve as a ticket to enter each stop on the tour.

The club has been hosting the tour bi-annually, but the stops change each tour, according to club member Phyllis Loudermilk. But all of this year’s stops are in the northeast metro area of Atlanta.

All stops on the tour are at homes of Atlanta Koi Club members.

Loudermilk is the second stop on the tour, and she and her husband will be serving guests lunch.

“It’s a specialized hobby for most people,” she said. “[My husband and I] saw a sign for the club’s auction and attended, and then we started our koi pond and learned about caring for it.”

Caring for koi is a hobby that cannot be ignored, Loudermilk said. The club holds weekly meetings to teach members about the care, including filtering the pond.

“There’s an educational aspect to the upcoming tour,” she said. “People can ask the members questions about their ponds and caring for koi.”

All ponds on the tour will be different, but will have similar types of fish in them. Guests will drive to the ponds, but touring them will be on foot.

“They’ll see a lot of different and beautiful ponds and gardens and can learn anything they ask,” Loudermilk said.

In previous years, the tour has brought a couple hundred people, she said. Proceeds go back into the nonprofit club.

“We enjoy sitting on the patio and watching the movements,” she said. “It’s a hobby, but you can’t just do it when you feel like it. You have to take care of it long term. If not, you’ll have a pond of dead fish.”

More information about joining the educational club is available on the website.

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